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Posted (05/21/2011) -

Team Sahlen worked through much adversity at Round 4 of the ROLEX Sports Car Series at Virginia International Raceway.  That adversity started with a minor off by the #42 in practice session #1.  What normally would have been a trip through the grass, resulted in a quick slide to the guardrail, due to the slick off track surface of the recent day’s rain. 

 

This wreck caused the crew to go into a scramble to put the RX-8 back together.  While most teams might have packed up the car for another weekend, the Team Sahlen crew valiantly pursued to put everything back together.  The great team work of MAZDASPEED Teams also was beneficial as Dempsey Racing volunteered their spare bumper to make repairs possible. 

 

In qualifying, Wayne Nonnamaker worked hard to continue to place the #42 up the grid, while also still sorting out what was still in need of fixing on the Mazda.  In the end, his efforts were good for 8th on the GT grid.  Joe Nonnamaker placed the #43 Mazda in 15th slot on the grid.   

 

“We had hoped before the weekend to be much farther up the grid in Qualifying, but after the wreck in practice session 1, it was actually just amazing to be out there in making laps.  The biggest issue with the incident was the lost time in set-up work in practice 2 & 3.” – shared Wayne Nonnamaker

 

If the weekend had been crazy to this point for Team Sahlen, the star of the race would pale all that had come before it.  As all the ROLEX Sports Cars sat on pre-grid, the rainstorm that had been forecast finally came. And rain came down in buckets.  As the green flag was waved to start the race, parts of the track were flooded, and visibility was about 15 feet.   Many cars went in the opening lap, and the race immediately went to Yellow flag conditions.  This lasted for the next 30 minutes of the race.  This yellow flag period allowed Joe Nonnamaker to pit at the 30 minute mark and hand over the reins of the #43 to son Will. 

 

“I had already been out on the track at the start, since I started and parked our #49 entry.  So I knew what  be expecting.  It don’t think it made me any more prepared for the conditions.  It just heightened my awareness of the extreme danger of what I was about to face.  We kept going around under the downpour.  At about the 1 hour and 30 minute mark, the track was still a bit damp with a mist coming down.  We decided to roll the strategy under the yellow to stay out on our Rain Tires, anticipating further downpours.    This strategy worked for quite awhile, as we rose up to 5th place in GT, and we were pulling away from the other GT competitors who had switched to dries.  The funny part was that even though being on wet tires on a drying track was certainly slowing us down, my other biggest problem became visibility.  Mud kept being thrown up on my windshield, and without rain, it just dried and formed the worst visibility imaginable.  In the end when we did pit for the last time, we exited and the yellow came out, effectively putting us a lap down for the remainder of the race” – shared an excited Will Nonnamaker

 

The #42 Mazda also experienced its share of early race drama as sticking throttle forced Wayne Nonnamaker to the pits to cure the issue.  At the 1 hour  and half mark, Wayne handed over to Memo Gidley.  To split strategies, Team Sahlen choose to put dry tires on #42, when #43 stayed on wets.  With no more rain coming, this strategy was the right one.  Then with 1 hour to go, #42 also came in and topped up on fuel, thus ensuring the RX-8 could make it to the end.  When a final yellow came out, all the other remaining GT cars pitted to fuel up.  This advanced the #42 to 2nd in GT. Unfortunately,  a loose suspension piece that was later tracked back to the Practice 1 wreck led to the #42 not being able to keep pace, leading to a 9th place finish.

 

Memo Gidley stated - "It was a tough weekend at VIR for the #42 Sahlen's RX8.  Starting with an accident I had in practice one, we just never were able to rebound from this and get a good handle on the race car.  Even with many problems leading up to the race, the team did a great job and we still found ourselves in third place after the final pit stops,  But the car was just not fast in the race and difficult to drive which showed by me dropping back to ninth by the time the checkered flag fell.  After the race, we found a camber nut had come lose which explains the lack of pace for the race.  Needless to say...I hope to forget the VIR race as soon as possible and really look forward to the next race at Lime Rock.  The #42 Sahlen's car has yet to shine with a great finish...however I know we are in position to make it happen at Lime Rock."

 

Shared Team Engineer Catherine Crawford Wallace“VIR proved a difficult weekend for the Sahlen team. We started of strong in the first practice but with 20 minutes to go we had a large crash. The team worked hard to get the car back out for the next practice and qualifying. Unfortunately the car was never the same and needs a rebuild. The hard times kept coming when we couldn’t take the green at the start of the race due to a sticking throttle. The rain actually helped us by keeping the yellow out so we could continuously try to and eventually succeed at fixing the throttle while never losing a lap. We were in 2nd with 30 minutes to go and I really thought we may pull a good result out of a very hard weekend but it wasn’t meant to be. Due to broken rear suspension and a hit in the back end we ended up 9th. Hopefully we can leave that bad luck weekend behind and move on to better things up north!”  - Shared Team Engineer Catherine Crawford Wallace

 

The next event for Team Sahlen is the Lime Rock Park event of the Grand-Am ROLEX Sports Car Series on May 30th.  The race will be televised live on SPEED TV at 2 pm est.

 

The 2011 Team Sahlen GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series presented by Crown Royal Cask No. 16 is supported by Mazda, Mazdaspeed, HRPWorld.com, Cool Shirt, Racetech Seats, BBS, Racing Print Media, Alcon, Mothers Polish, EMCO, NGK Spark Plugs, TheRaceSite.com, Western New York Flash, Grassroots Motorsports, Castrol Oil, Holliday Canopies, ASC Industries, Muscle Milk, Iannetti  Design Ideas, CM Racing

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